How sense of power shapes consumers’ evaluative judgements and decisions

Abstract

It is consumers’ perceived power (i.e. sense of power), and not their objective power, that directly triggers psychological and behavioral consequences. Across three experiments, by employing different types of experimental designs and instantiating sense of power in participants through conceptual/mindset priming techniques, I examine how power affects consumers in attitude updating, in evaluating information prior to a decision, and in their consumption tendencies. Specifically, high-power subjects are shown to revise more their attitude after a counterattitudinal task, to have lower levels of predecisional distortion of information concerning two travel destinations, and to be more prone to choose a product to self-assemble. The empirical insights gained through this investigation urge marketers and practitioners to target powerful consumers and market influentials or to directly empowers consumers, in order to facilitate word-of-mouth and referrals, to assess unbiased consumers’ preferences, to push self-production practices, customerization, and, ultimately, to effectively pursue value-based differentiation. [edited by Author]